This invention relates to a liquid container, and, in particular, to a dual container having two different bottle portions releasably joined for handling and use.
There are many products which are used together, such as shampoo and hair conditioner, ketchup and mustard, and oil and vinegar. These products are generally provided in two separate containers. Thus, the end-user must keep separate bottles together. For example, after shampooing, it may be difficult for a person in the shower to find a separate conditioner bottle. It is thus desirable to be able to store these related products together so that both may be readily available at the same time.
Dual containers, per se, have been shown in the past. U.S Pat. No. 4,196,808 to Pardo, for example, shows a pair of containers which, as disclosed, may be bonded together or may be held together by shrink wrap. This provides for two containers which are either held together as a unit or are separate. The disadvantage in this is that if one container is emptied before the other, the empty container cannot be readily replaced with a fresh container of the used product.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,194,426, to Brown, Jr. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,445, to Mandelbaum, disclose containers which are removably connected. The Brown, Jr. containers use longitudinal dovetails to lock the containers together and a detent to prevent relative movement of the bottles along the axis of the connection. The Mandelbaum containers, which are designed to store different types of pills for use together, have a large number of transversely oriented dovetail connections joining each container. However, the structures of Brown, Jr. and Mandelbaum are not well suited to many applications. The longitudinal dovetails of Brown, Jr. require more force to join or separate the bottles than can be easily applied, particularly when the bottles are made of plastic. The plurality of small transverse dovetails of Mandelbaum might require less force, but would be cumbersome to align and would not be stable against lateral bending forces.
Therefore, it is desirable in many applications to provide a structure permitting a plurality of containers to be readily joined and separated by a simple manual motion and yet providing a rugged connection in the joined condition.